BETHESDA (Maryland) • US President Donald Trump, who had avoided wearing a mask in public even as the coronavirus pandemic spread, has donned one at a military medical facility outside Washington where he was to meet wounded soldiers and front-line healthcare workers.
The visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre on Saturday marked Mr Trump's first public appearance with a face covering since the virus began sweeping across the United States earlier this year.
He had previously refused to wear a mask in public or ask other Americans to do so, saying it was a personal choice, although he had said he would if he was in a crowd and could not maintain a distance from others.
"I think when you are in a hospital, especially in that particular setting when you are talking to a lot of soldiers, people who in some cases just got off the operating table, I think it's a great thing to wear a mask," Mr Trump told reporters at the White House just before his visit to Walter Reed.
At the medical facility, the President walked past media, gathered for a carefully staged photo opportunity, wearing a navy blue mask emblazoned with a presidential seal embossed in gold.
Top public health officials have urged the use of masks to slow the spread of the virus. Critics say Mr Trump's refusal to wear one showed a lack of leadership.
Even as other officials in his administration called for the use of masks and social distancing, Mr Trump, who faces re-election in November, pressured states to reopen closed economies.
The country posted yet another daily record of confirmed cases on Saturday night with 66,528 new infections, while the death toll rose by almost 800 to nearly 135,000.
The total number of US infections has topped 3.3 million, according to Worldometer.
In Florida, where nearly one in six of those new infections was recorded, the Walt Disney World theme park partially reopened after four months of shutdown prompted by the virus. Hundreds of people queued to enter the park in Orlando, some sporting Mickey ears but all wearing face masks, with social distancing and other hygiene precautions also in place.
A spokesman for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden said Mr Trump had spent months ignoring the advice of medical experts and politicising wearing a mask.
"Rather than taking responsibility and leading, he wasted four months that Americans have been making sacrifices by stoking divisions and actively discouraging people from taking a very basic step to protect one another," said the spokesman, Mr Andrew Bates.
Mr Trump has also demanded that US schools fully reopen this autumn amid the pandemic, as part of an emerging re-election strategy that seeks to resuscitate his flagging support in the nation's critical suburbs.
In recent weeks, he has taken stances on hot-button issues that his campaign hopes will appeal to suburban voters, particularly women, who have soured on the Republican President since his 2016 election.
Along with aggressively pushing for students to return to classrooms, Mr Trump has warned of rising urban crime rates and threats to civil order in the wake of protests over racial injustice, while pointing to the vibrant stock market as a marker of economic health.
So far, there is little sign the approach is working. Mr Trump trails Mr Biden in both national and battleground state polls.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last week found that in the nation's suburbs, just 36 per cent said they approve of Mr Trump, while 59 per cent disapprove. Among suburban women, three in 10 approve of Mr Trump, while four in 10 men support the President.
Ms Shannon Alsop, a 39-year-old doctor and mother of two school-age children, said Mr Trump is politicising the reopening of America's schools. "The question is: Can we open our schools and have (our families) be safe? I want that decision to be founded in research and science. I don't trust the President to make that call for us."
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
